Portal frame farm buildings put up and existing barns extended, for farms and yards around Dereham and across mid Norfolk. Columns, rafters, purlins and cladding rails, made in Norwich and stood on your bases.
Dereham, about 16 miles west of Norwich on the A47.
Steel frame erection, mid Norfolk
A grain store, a machinery shed, a lean-to on the old barn. Round here, structural steel mostly means farm buildings.
Swift Fabrication provides steel erection in Dereham and on the farms around it. Our steel erectors put up new portal frame buildings, add bays to existing ones and fix lean-tos to barns that have stood for decades, as well as frames and mezzanines for units on the Rashes Green and Yaxham Road estates.
A farmyard is not a building site. There may be no hardstanding where the shed is going, no power, stock next door and a tanker due at four. We bring our own power, ask what the ground is like after rain, and time the delivery and the lifting so your yard keeps working. Tell us when drilling and harvest fall and we will keep clear.
Structural steel in Dereham
Building the frame
The order is the same for a three bay tractor shed or a long grain store. Plant, dates and price are settled with you beforehand, not on the day.
Foundation pads and holding down bolts are cast by your groundworker from the engineer's drawing. We provide a bolt setting-out plan, then come out to check positions, levels and diagonals before steel is loaded. Square bases save a day of struggle.
The first two frames are stood, tied together with purlins and braced so nothing can move. Each frame after that is lifted, bolted at haunch and ridge, and tied back to the last. A hired telehandler handles most farm buildings. A wide span may call for a crane.
With purlins, cladding rails and bracing in, the frame is plumbed and lined through and the bolts get their final tightening. It is then ready for your sheeting contractor, and the column bases can be grouted.
Adding to a barn that is already there
Old frames are rarely what the drawings say, if drawings exist at all. Before making anything we measure the existing columns, eaves height, bay centres and roof pitch, so new rafters and rails line up with old.
An extra bay on the gable, a lean-to down one side or a roof raised for taller machinery all load the old frame differently, so your engineer needs to check it first. We then make cleats and brackets to suit the steel that is there, odd hole patterns included, and bolt new to old.
Our RAMS take in overhead lines, stock and farm traffic as well as the lifting. Planning consent is for you or your agent to obtain.
Grain stores, sheds and lean-tos
Grain stores need frames designed for the push of the crop on the walls, so the engineer's drawings matter more than usual. Machinery sheds want height and wide openings. Stock buildings are better galvanised, because muck eats paint. We make and erect all three, along with straw barns and farm workshops.
In the town itself, units on Rashes Green and Yaxham Road need the usual commercial steelwork: mezzanines, new door openings, canopies and beams for builders. Same erectors, same method, less mud.
Machinery installation in DerehamAround Dereham
Dereham is about 16 miles from our Norwich workshop, near enough that a trip to check bases or measure a barn is no trouble. We cover the villages all round: Shipdham, Mattishall, North Elmham, Yaxham and out to Swaffham. Mention narrow lanes and tight yard entrances, as they decide the lorry we send.
To price a farm building we need the engineer's or designer's drawings. With none yet, give us the span, length, eaves height and use, and we can help shape a design for your engineer to check. Add photographs and say who is doing the concrete. Estimates are free, with the price agreed before steel is ordered.
Steel fabrication in DerehamFarm building questions
No. We make and erect the steel. Pads, cast in bolts and floor slabs belong to your groundworker or builder, who gets a setting-out drawing from us. We do come and check the bolts before delivery, because that is the one thing that can stop an erection day dead.
Usually, provided an engineer is happy that the old frame and its foundations can take it. We survey the existing steel ourselves so the new work fits. Timber and concrete framed barns can have steel added too, with connections your engineer has designed.
Not at all. The van carries a generator and welding plant, and hired lifting plant runs on its own fuel. What we do need is firm ground for a telehandler and a loaded lorry. If the plot is soft, a few loads of hardcore before we arrive is money well spent.
As early as you can. Steel has to be drawn, made and, if wanted, galvanised before it goes up, and everyone wants a grain store ready in the same few weeks. Give us your date and we will say plainly whether it can be done.
Steel erection, Dereham
Tell us the size, the use and where the farm is, and send any drawings you have. We will come and look, then give you a free estimate to make and erect the frame.